


what's in a name

by atlas (songs)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4515501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Komugi,” the wolf tells him.</p><p>One word. One name.</p><p>One name is all it takes for everything to fall into place. For the King (Meruem, Meruem, <i>his name is Meruem. Her name is Komugi. The name hidden deep and dark in his soul</i>) to remember color and mercy and warmth and sight– Komugi’s blind sight, which could always see so much more than his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's in a name

i.

“You hold her like you love her,” Shiapouf does not say. But the King still catches the glimpse of silent, calculating thought beneath his servant’s eyes when he passes through the halls, with Komugi’s small, bonelike body curled in his arms.

Pouf  _does_ say, “The human may not have good eyes, but she has working legs, my Lord.”

The King ( _nameless ruler, soulless god)_ cranes his neck. It’s a fraction of a gesture, but Pouf seems to understand the force behind it, well enough. He swallows, as the King warns:

“Do you doubt my perceptions, Pouf?”

The Ant’s throat bobs. “N-no, my King.”

The King turns, then, and with his back to Pouf, he says: “I’m taking her to more comfortable quarters. She needs a break from the games.”

 _She’s so very fragile,_ the King does not say. He does not let his gaze drift to the red-lined wounds on her skin.  _All it took was a bird to make her like this. She falls and she bleeds. She cries. She cannot see._

_She is weak._

_Or is she?_

The King tries to shake off the thought, but it remains planted in place, not unlike Komugi’s feather-weight in his grasp.

_Or is she?_

ii.

Komugi likes his voice.

The Supreme Ruler’s voice is not a kind voice, but she enjoys it, nonetheless. The way he speaks to her—there is no pity laced into the words. And Komugi has spent her life drowning in others’ pity.

Because of this, over the years, her world has narrowed to a game-board and its pieces. But these past days— _weeks, perhaps?_ —have been different. Her universe has widened, if only a sliver, has shifted from its axis of archers and spies and Gungi-moves to a voice and the man behind it:  _The King._

But what does that make her?

A fool?

A pawn?

_A queen?_

She erases the silly thought from her mind as soon as it forms. The Supreme Ruler has been far too kind to her, clearly. Komugi knows better than to believe she is a girl of fairytales and follies.

_But…_

He told her she was not a burden. He saved her. He played Gungi with her, day in and day out, and never once belittled her, never once considered her useless or pathetic. He weaved into her world of game-pillars, careful and mindful not to knock any of it down. He simply became a part of it.

_The Supreme Ruler._

“Let’s begin,” he says, now, and she smiles fondly.

Komugi likes his voice.

iii.

“May I ask a question, Supreme Ruler?”

The King ( _what is his name?)_ says, “Yes.”

Komugi asks, “Do you like Gungi, Supreme Ruler?”

The King wonders over the strange question.  _What is ‘to like’?_ He does not know. Gungi begins as a pastime and ends as something all-engrossing, and yet, he cannot say he enjoys the game, so much as he simply  _thrives_ on it. Does he like Gungi? Does he enjoy playing Gungi? If Komugi were not his opponent, would it still be as entertaining?

 _No, because Komugi is the strongest player,_ he reasons.

_But what if she wasn’t?_

That gives him pause.

 _What if she wasn’t?_ he thinks, again.

Rather than answer, he asks, “Why are you wasting my time with such a question?”

Komugi’s smile is a muted, gentle thing. It does not fill her face—it simply blends in with the rest of her pale, calm features.

“I’ve always loved Gungi,” she tells him. “It gave me a sense of purpose. When I first started playing with The Supreme Ruler, I hungered for more and more matches, and I wasn’t sure why. I’m always playing Gungi, after all. But now, I’m even playing in my sleep. The thing is, though—”

From the corner of his eye, the King catches a spark of gold filtering through the air. There’s a strange aura to it, but he is so entranced by Komugi’s words that he nearly misses it.

“—in my dreams, my opponent is always you, but then—”

 _An arrow,_ the King realizes, and everything goes still. Thick, Nen-gold arrows fall like rain through the ceiling, and the King, for a moment, is paralyzed, unable to come up with any word but:

“ _Komugi_ —!”

“—I realized. Um. If you don’t mind someone like me confessing this, Supreme Ruler. I wasn’t…I don’t think I was dreaming of playing Gungi. I was dreaming—”

The arrow falls towards her, and the King scrambles forward, a split-second too late—

“—of you.”

iv.

 _I never even learned his name,_ is the last thing Komugi realizes, right before the knife-like pain in her stomach settles her to sleep.

v.

_They killed her they killed her she’s so fragile, they killed her, this frail, frail doll-girl—_

When he holds her, this time, she is lighter, somehow, as though she’s lost a slip of her soul. He holds her and the world is stiff, rigid, and silent.

_He will end whoever has done this._

_No—_

He will save Komugi.

That is more important.

 _But why?_ He has no answer.

The room breathes again when the King says, “I leave her to you, Pitou.”

(Water trails from Pitou’s eyes, just like Komugi’s always had.

_Komugi, Komugi, Komugi, Komugi—)_

Even if he never learns his name, he will want to keep hers in his heart.

The question, however, remains, when everything else does not:

But _why?_

vi.

“Meruem,” the old man says. “Your name is Meruem.”

He imagines his name in  _her_ voice, instead, and then the explosion comes.

vii.

Komugi doesn’t like these voices.

She wakes from a strange, fever-like dream. In her dream, she dies, and the Supreme Leader is nowhere to be found.

When she awakens, it is just the same.

 _Where is he?_ She wants to ask. But no one will answer.

No one has ever answered her questions, before.

No one but—

viii.

“Meruem,” he tells Pouf and Youpi. “The name my mother gave me was Meruem.”

There is someone else he longs to tell. But for the life of him, he cannot remember  _who_. And the world seems oddly blank, oddly dreary, as if it’s been stripped of all stars and warmth. Meruem wonders if it’s because he’s died and come back.

(Meruem wonders what Pouf is hiding.)

_Meruem wonders what he is forgetting._

ix.

“Komugi,” the wolf tells him.

One word. One name.

One name is all it takes for everything to fall into place. For the King (Meruem, Meruem,  _his name is Meruem. Her name is Komugi. The name hidden deep and dark in his soul)_ to remember color and mercy and warmth and sight– Komugi’s blind sight, which could always see so much more than his own.

Her face pulses through his mind like a heart, and he says it, again:

“ _Komugi_.”

x.

The Supreme Leader is acting strange. It’s been a while since they last played, but  _still._ He’s more quiet now, more pensive.

 _Not much better at Gungi,_ Komugi does not say. At least not out loud.

But she  _does_ giggle.

The laughter, though, makes way for tears, and when he asks, “Why do you cry?” Komugi does not know what to say, or how to explain.

 _Because of you,_ she realizes,  _it’s all because I was born to meet you._

xi.

“Will you say my name?” he asks. It’s almost a plea. “One last time, Komugi?”

He can no longer see the moon-sheen of her face, nor can he feel the warmth of her touch. But she’s there. He knows as much.

And it is enough– 

“Goodnight, Meruem.”

xii.

“I’ll be joining you, soon,” Komugi murmurs.

And her promise is kept.


End file.
